


Odds Are

by karrenia_rune



Category: Indiana Jones Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-25
Updated: 2007-09-25
Packaged: 2018-01-25 05:38:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,947
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1634405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/karrenia_rune/pseuds/karrenia_rune
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry Jones Sr. plans an father-son exploration bonding trip to Africa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Odds Are

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Renne](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Renne/gifts).



> Written for Renne

 

 

Disclaimer: Indiana Jones and all the characters who appear here belong to its original creators, producers, and directors,; they are not mine and are only `borrowed' for the purposes of the story. Note: takes place sometime around the end of the third movie; written for Renne in the Yuletide NYR 2007 challenge, featuring Indiana and his father.

Securing the requisite travel permits and wherewithal for the journey had easier than anticipated, Indiana Jones mused as stood on the heaving platform of the railway station platform.

His task was to secure the guy ropes of the hot air balloon. Slightly to his left and blow his own rather precarious position, his father filled sand bags.

They had been at the task of preparing for the maiden voyage to the Dark Continent since before first light, and Indy wondered if his father had finally lost that steely resolved that had made him legendary among the circles of both scholars, adventurers, and archeologists.

Indy shook his head and shoved the worrisome thoughts aside, refocusing on the task at hand.

It deserved attention, because an insistent breeze had picked up, shifting direction from being in front of his position, and now at his back; threatening to knock off from his perch.

He almost lost his balance, but with twisting and turning this way and that, grabbing a fistful of rope, he managed to hang on.

"Is everything all right up there?" his father called from below as he bent over and put the finishing touches on the helium tank that would provide both lift, heat, and propulsion to their mode of transportation.

"Fine," Indy shouted back. Then he went back to puzzling out the knots in the rope. It took some doing and by the time he had finished tying off the ends of all the ropes, he swung down, just avoiding burning the palms of his hands.

Indy landed on the platform and then went down the steps to see if his father needed help with the sand bags.

"Need anything?" he asked.

"No, but the luggage we packed still needs to be loaded into the gondola." He smiled "So, if you would be so good as to begin loading into the gondola, I would very much appreciate it."

"Of course," Indy replied and walked over to the stack of bags, parcels and other material that they had brought along; more or less packed and calculated to accommodate the maximum weight load that the balloon would be able to carry along with its two passengers.

* Once all the pre-launch preparations had been checked and rechecked, they climbed into the basket and set the stripped balloon to its full extension; they had employed the use of a single-layered, fabric gas bag, or a (lifting "envelope"), with an opening at the bottom called the mouth or throat.

"That's got it," he shouted out to the older man. "It should provide enough heat provided we don't burn out too soon, and descend faster than we anticipated rising."

"I should certainly hope not,: replied his father. "I don't fancy a swim in the Atlantic, and one thing I did not think to pack was my swim trunks."

"I would tend to agree," Indy allowed a small smile to crease the corners of his mouth. "I don't fancy going in after you. It's cold water in the ocean."

"Quite," his father replied, but the stern look was replaced with a hearty chuckle. "I swim like a cat forced to go out and hunt in the rain; most reluctantly and with the hair on the back of my neck arched and spiky."

"Are we ready for lift-off?"

"Yes, after you," his father gestured and allowed Indy to step aboard first and then followed suit shortly afterwards.

Mounted above the basket and centered in the mouth is the "burner" provided to inject a flame into the envelope, heating the air within. The heater or burner is fueled by propane, a liquefied gas stored in pressure vessels.

Henry Jones Sr. stood at the exact center of the basket in a posture of both control and expectation, with stretched the index finger of his left hand out to test for both the strength and direction of the wind shifting coming in off the white cliffs of Dover, England.

England and its Royal Academy of Sciences had been gracious enough to both host them while they had made preparations for the trip to the Dark Continent, although he thought, "I realize that Africa is not really called by that particular moniker anymore, still, old habits die hard."

On the heels of that particular thought . Mr. Jones Sr., darted a quick glance at his son and wondered if pushing an expedition to the unexplored areas of Timbuktu in the heart of the African continent had been the best thing to do under the circumstances.

As a father he, of course, worried about his son's well-being, however as a fellow professional archaeologist he realized that Indy was more than capable of taking care of himself. As much as he hated to admit it, Indy had been doing just that, taking care of himself, and carving out a nice career for himself in both the field work of archaeology and in the world of academia, mainly on his own for quite some time now.

*** 

The sky was the color of a robin's egg, a blue that that they had not often sea during their stay in London. However, weather, inclement or otherwise, was something they had planned for and made allowances for it.

Once they had reached a satisfactory cruising altitude, and were drifting on the wind currents in south and east, Indy put on his leather gloves and tended to the fuel tank which hung from the bottom of the balloon's inward facing edge, mounted on a gimbals to enable the pilot to aim the flame and avoid overheating the fabric.

The breeze had picked up by now and the wind shifted direction, where before it had been blowing at their back, it now blew in from the side, pushing at the strange flying machine with the insistent, but half-teasing claws of a kitten playing with a ball of string.

***** Lake Tukana, Kenya, three weeks later

The sun overhead was a brilliant ball of fuzzy white light, even at shortly after ten in the morning, the heat was intense making movement difficult. Yet, the locals were out upon their daily routines.

It was probably a good thing that they had thought to engage the services of a local guide, for neither man was confident that they could have found their way if they had been forced to rely upon their own poor understanding of the local languages.

The green pickup truck trundled along at a good clip and they made good time, and finally arrived at their destination shortly after one in the afternoon, stopping only to have a brief meal of ham and a local succulent plant that tasted like cornbread but wafted a brief aroma, like a banana. The guide called it a yucca plant.

While he would never say as much to Indy, however Henry had been a bit worried when they had requested a permit at the British constabulary in order to travel into the interior.

The men were armed and clad in loose-fitting garb, some wore the traditional tribal colors of the Nandi.

While the majority of them men chose to adopt the slacks and short-sleeved shirts of their Western neighbors. All the same, the small .38 caliber pistols, knives, and long-barreled rifles they carried knew no sense of proper boundaries.

According to the most reliable to be had trader and missionary accounts, that the Turkana tribes were treacherous, aggressive and insolent. And in the back of his mind, Henry would have taken heeded such warnings, but these sketchy observations only added to the misguided notions that were already circulating in the Kenyan Protectorate.

Henry Jones Sr. warily but confidently approached the armed men, his hands spread wide and out from his body in the universal non-verbal gesture of hail fellow, we mean no harm and I'm unarmed. "Is there something we can do for you fellows?" he asked.

The apparent leader stepped forward, and took all of ten seconds to regard him from head to foot and then tilted his head back, balancing on the balls of his booted feet, and spit a wad of salivia onto the front of his father's stripped shirt.

"British imperialists," he added as back-pedaled into the company of his men.

"That was hardly called for, my good man," the older Jones replied. "For one thing, we are not British, and for another, regardless of one's country of origin, that's hardly sporting."

"Don't care, don't want to know," the leader replied in a listless tone of voice. "Just want you gone."

"We will leave when we have what we came here for," the other man added firmly but politely.

In response the leader thumbed a signal to his men and they response to the unspoken message to lock and load their weapons,. By this time, Indiana had reached into his own bag and withdrew his own gun , but never had a chance to use it, because his father was already moving, dropping to the ground and rolling behind a large outcropping of rock in order to avoid the shots fired at him.

"Dad!" Indy yelled and dashed forward, first to check if his father was still in one piece and second to find a better vantage point to get off a few shots of his own.

It became a moot point by the arrival of a jeep of armed British soldiers, somewhat dampened in both their appearance and effectiveness by the fact that they were quite drunk.

"Whatever is going on here," the man with lieutenant bars on his shoulder said, "It had better stop here and now, you get me."

The native man looked up and gasped. "Okay, okay, it just ain't worth it."

To Henry Jones Sr. he said, "Guess it's your lucky day, white man," and turning on his hall he snapped his fingers and his followers fell into step behind him, and soon they were last to sight in the heat haze rising up from the ground and the surrounding landscape.

"That was a most odd and highly diverting experience," Henry Jones Sr. remarked as he scrambled to his feet, feeling for cuts, bruises, or other more serious injuries and stepped up and around to join his son on the high ground by the lakeshore.

Indiana went up to the soldiers and nodded. "We appreciate the save, but we still have work to do around here."

"I understand," the man replied, but contact us the next time, right then?"

"Right," Indy replied.

"Well, then, if that's settled," his father stated rubbing his hands together, we should be getting back to work."

Conclusion

A few hours later

"What was `that all about," Indiana asked as he continued to dig into the open crevice that their research had indicated was the site of the lost artifact that had once been the property of a stone spear that legend had it had been the basis of the ankh of the first Egyptian Pharaoh.

A well-honed skeptics for and his own experience, knew that even the most unalike and difficult to believe in legend always had a kernel of truth buried deep if one were determined enough to discover it. Hopefully that would prove to be true in this instance.

"Odds are, if you fall the chain of events long enough, you eventually reach a solution." Indiana muttered aloud to himself.


End file.
